2023-24 draft calendar scenarios to be reviewed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If all the MCPS people on this thread are done congratulating yourselves, can you please explain why there are three non-instructional days in a row? Last Friday kids played games for their "mental health" and this week there were two half-days. All were non-instructional since they didn't cover new material in that time. Same goes for the other half-days. How can this possibly count under the 180 day Maryland instruction requirement?

Ummm who here is congratulating themselves? Stop using your school or child’s experience as county wide. These last two days were business as usual at most schools. Normal instructional days, just shorter. I’m sure yours did too actually, you’d rather just choose to whine bc that’s the MoCo way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all the MCPS people on this thread are done congratulating yourselves, can you please explain why there are three non-instructional days in a row? Last Friday kids played games for their "mental health" and this week there were two half-days. All were non-instructional since they didn't cover new material in that time. Same goes for the other half-days. How can this possibly count under the 180 day Maryland instruction requirement?

Ummm who here is congratulating themselves? Stop using your school or child’s experience as county wide. These last two days were business as usual at most schools. Normal instructional days, just shorter. I’m sure yours did too actually, you’d rather just choose to whine bc that’s the MoCo way.

+1. I don't know what that PP is talking about. Every Friday this month has been a regular instructional day. Whether a given teacher or school decides to let the kids play games for whatever reason has nothing to do with the school calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If all the MCPS people on this thread are done congratulating yourselves, can you please explain why there are three non-instructional days in a row? Last Friday kids played games for their "mental health" and this week there were two half-days. All were non-instructional since they didn't cover new material in that time. Same goes for the other half-days. How can this possibly count under the 180 day Maryland instruction requirement?

Why are you like this? I have four kids-two in elementary, one in middle, and one in hs in MCPS. They were all given instruction these past two days. These were NOT non-instructional days. I quit teaching in MCPS last year and transferred to Howard County because of parents like you. My commute is much longer but at least my sanity is intact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

We end this year on June 16. It’s essentially the same/mid June. It’s not freakishly late. I would prefer they strike out a few professional days so they could wrap it up the prior Friday, but no one gave us that option (basic what we have now). I greatly prefer the Aug 28 start, so D was the obvious winner for me. And evidently for the most others.

I think the final version could still end up being something like Aug 28 - June 14, even though that wasn't one of the scenarios.

The Policy Management Committee met today, and they seemed to be agreeing on ending by June 14, but there was still some uncertainty about starting during the week of the 21st or 28th. The focus groups they had were in more favor of the 28th, but open to the 23rd. They talked about needing to figure out logistical issues with a mid-week start. Smondrowski was again favoring the earlier start, and brought on Jeff Sullivan to say that an earlier start of school is better for the athletics programs too. It sounds like the longer Thanksgiving and winter breaks aren't generating much interest. The superintendent's recommendation will be presented at the full board meeting on Dec. 6th.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CLAT9R764F5D/$file/221121%20SY%202023-24%20Calendar%20PMC%20Presentation.pdf

Thanks for summarizing! Could you tell how the other board members were leaning?

Evans and Kim went along with Smondrowski's suggestion asking the staff to create some sort of merged version of B and D, starting sometime the week of Aug 21st and ending by June 14th. Docca was against that, as she seemed to prefer starting the 28th. (But just noting that her term will end before the next full board meeting, so the newly elected board members will be the ones voting on it.)

So the option they could go with isn't even one they sent out in the survey? The new option will be both presented for the first time and voted on at the Dec. 6 meeting?

The board members were asking staff if they could come up with and present this new option and collect feedback before the 12/6 meeting, but I don't know if that's feasible at this point. Smondrowski was also asking if staff could come to the 12/6 meeting with a rough draft 2024-25 calendar as well, so they could start planning further ahead.

Oh good grief. It is evident from all the survey results and stakeholder meetings that the majority of people are fine with the general framework of the calendar as is, and there is only a limited number of people who see value in any of the drastically different options. If you boil it down even further, I think if you take all the feedback they’ve received, people basically want the latest feasible start and the earliest feasible end. Which is essentially what the current calendar does.

Agreed. Do the latest feasible start and earliest feasible end and be done with this, and do 23/24 while they’re at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

We end this year on June 16. It’s essentially the same/mid June. It’s not freakishly late. I would prefer they strike out a few professional days so they could wrap it up the prior Friday, but no one gave us that option (basic what we have now). I greatly prefer the Aug 28 start, so D was the obvious winner for me. And evidently for the most others.

I think the final version could still end up being something like Aug 28 - June 14, even though that wasn't one of the scenarios.

The Policy Management Committee met today, and they seemed to be agreeing on ending by June 14, but there was still some uncertainty about starting during the week of the 21st or 28th. The focus groups they had were in more favor of the 28th, but open to the 23rd. They talked about needing to figure out logistical issues with a mid-week start. Smondrowski was again favoring the earlier start, and brought on Jeff Sullivan to say that an earlier start of school is better for the athletics programs too. It sounds like the longer Thanksgiving and winter breaks aren't generating much interest. The superintendent's recommendation will be presented at the full board meeting on Dec. 6th.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CLAT9R764F5D/$file/221121%20SY%202023-24%20Calendar%20PMC%20Presentation.pdf

Thanks for summarizing! Could you tell how the other board members were leaning?

Evans and Kim went along with Smondrowski's suggestion asking the staff to create some sort of merged version of B and D, starting sometime the week of Aug 21st and ending by June 14th. Docca was against that, as she seemed to prefer starting the 28th. (But just noting that her term will end before the next full board meeting, so the newly elected board members will be the ones voting on it.)

Many east coast schools have been in the habit of starting mid-week after Labor Day (Tuesday or Wednesday) so that itself doesn't seem like a huge problem. If they start the 23rd, would teacher work days start the 16th? When would 6th and 9th Grade orientation be, when they run the busses? 21st or 22nd? What about high school senior events, or high school events for returning students like activity fair? Would it all get jammed into the 21st/22nd?

Yeah we always started the Wednesday after labor day. But we didn't have so many orientations and such before the start of the school year. I'm sure it's all feasible, but there are obviously trick-down effects to a midweek start and whether they can work all that out, and get feedback, in two weeks is doubtful.

Smondrowski´s idea of looking at next year´s calendar is not a bad one, but isn´t it against the MCPS calendar policy?? If the feedback from the calendar survey is that the community wants to start as late as possible and end as early as possible, that seems like common sense. Why are we still fiddling around with an earlier date. Will we rename these new late breaking iterations the Smondrowski calendars?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

We end this year on June 16. It’s essentially the same/mid June. It’s not freakishly late. I would prefer they strike out a few professional days so they could wrap it up the prior Friday, but no one gave us that option (basic what we have now). I greatly prefer the Aug 28 start, so D was the obvious winner for me. And evidently for the most others.

I think the final version could still end up being something like Aug 28 - June 14, even though that wasn't one of the scenarios.

The Policy Management Committee met today, and they seemed to be agreeing on ending by June 14, but there was still some uncertainty about starting during the week of the 21st or 28th. The focus groups they had were in more favor of the 28th, but open to the 23rd. They talked about needing to figure out logistical issues with a mid-week start. Smondrowski was again favoring the earlier start, and brought on Jeff Sullivan to say that an earlier start of school is better for the athletics programs too. It sounds like the longer Thanksgiving and winter breaks aren't generating much interest. The superintendent's recommendation will be presented at the full board meeting on Dec. 6th.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CLAT9R764F5D/$file/221121%20SY%202023-24%20Calendar%20PMC%20Presentation.pdf

Thanks for summarizing! Could you tell how the other board members were leaning?

Evans and Kim went along with Smondrowski's suggestion asking the staff to create some sort of merged version of B and D, starting sometime the week of Aug 21st and ending by June 14th. Docca was against that, as she seemed to prefer starting the 28th. (But just noting that her term will end before the next full board meeting, so the newly elected board members will be the ones voting on it.)

Many east coast schools have been in the habit of starting mid-week after Labor Day (Tuesday or Wednesday) so that itself doesn't seem like a huge problem. If they start the 23rd, would teacher work days start the 16th? When would 6th and 9th Grade orientation be, when they run the busses? 21st or 22nd? What about high school senior events, or high school events for returning students like activity fair? Would it all get jammed into the 21st/22nd?

Yeah we always started the Wednesday after labor day. But we didn't have so many orientations and such before the start of the school year. I'm sure it's all feasible, but there are obviously trick-down effects to a midweek start and whether they can work all that out, and get feedback, in two weeks is doubtful.

Smondrowski´s idea of looking at next year´s calendar is not a bad one, but isn´t it against the MCPS calendar policy?? If the feedback from the calendar survey is that the community wants to start as late as possible and end as early as possible, that seems like common sense. Why are we still fiddling around with an earlier date. Will we rename these new late breaking iterations the Smondrowski calendars?

Smondrowski always seems to be the one with the worst ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

There is no compelling need for elementary and middle school kids to have a late start start date. There is a compelling reason for high school kids to have an early start date. Elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

Totally agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

There is no compelling need for elementary and middle school kids to have a late start start date. There is a compelling reason for high school kids to have an early start date. Elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students.

I mean, the a/c in parts of my kids’ school didn’t work properly in September this year. The school is one of the newest buildings in the county so I can only imagine the functionality in older buildings. My kids’ bus is not air conditioned at all. These things are not insignificant if you are asking people to start in the middle of August in this region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

There is no compelling need for elementary and middle school kids to have a late start start date. There is a compelling reason for high school kids to have an early start date. Elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students.

Exactly. And many parts of the country follow the earlier start. Much easier on high school kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

There is no compelling need for elementary and middle school kids to have a late start start date. There is a compelling reason for high school kids to have an early start date. Elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students.

The latest start date being considered is August 28, which isn’t even late at all. It’s our regular week. Lots of places start after Labor Day, especially in NY area but also in many jurisdictions in Maryland. And yes, elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students. They’ll also one day be adults. Right now, they aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

There is no compelling need for elementary and middle school kids to have a late start start date. There is a compelling reason for high school kids to have an early start date. Elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students.

Exactly. And many parts of the country follow the earlier start. Much easier on high school kids.

lol and those schools across the country get out in may, not June. We can’t even get that right. Also, your “reason” isn’t compelling at all. It’s not even beneficial to all high school kids, just AP students. Hardly a reason to change a calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe D was the most popular option. WTF would people be okay with going to June 18th? Maybe a lot of the people who chose D don’t send their kids the last few days of school anyway?

My kid goes to school every day unless she's sick, but D fits our typical vacation schedule better. I'm not sure why that would be hard to understand. A June 18th end date is no later than an August 17 start is early.

High school kids do not benefit from instructional days after they’ve taken AP exams (some teachers stop teaching), but they sure do benefit from more instructional days prior to the exams. Also, the first semester is broken up by so many holidays and early releases, when people aren’t as burned out because it’s still early in the school year. We have a long slog from spring break to the last day of school, with few breaks, and people are totally burned out by those last few weeks. The final stretch wouldn’t be as miserable if there weren’t so many weeks after spring break.

There are far more kids in elementary, middle school, and non AP high school students than there are AP students. We do not need to schedule our entire district calendar around this. Furthermore, AP students should be at school to be learning for more than just one test.

There is no compelling need for elementary and middle school kids to have a late start start date. There is a compelling reason for high school kids to have an early start date. Elementary and middle school students will eventually be high school students.

I mean, the a/c in parts of my kids’ school didn’t work properly in September this year. The school is one of the newest buildings in the county so I can only imagine the functionality in older buildings. My kids’ bus is not air conditioned at all. These things are not insignificant if you are asking people to start in the middle of August in this region.

No gyms in MCPS have AC. AC in a lot of rooms doesn’t work. Teachers have the right to request an alternative teaching space when the temp in their room is 80 degrees or higher (per the contract). No way would principals be able to accommodate this if we started school any earlier.

As for APs, plenty of systems across the country start after Labor Day and the students do fine on AP tests. Do they not assign summer work for AP classes anymore?